Twitter Joins the Advertising API Game

APIs for social networks are a win/win. The network gets to outsource product development to experts and potentially increase revenue flow. Brands and marketers get to make more efficient and more informed decisions, while driving a higher ROI. This is why both Facebook and LinkedIn created their APIs. And now Twitter has joined the party…

In a move yesterday many expected much earlier, Twitter officially rolled out its advertising API for both its Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts products. Twitter also shared who its initial API partners were (Adobe, HootSuite, Salesforce, SHIFT, and TBG Digital).

With this announcement, many have expressed concerns over a sudden influx of ads on the platform. Twitter’s President of Global Revenue, Adam Bain, was quick to address the issue.

Our Ads API launch today will help bring even better real-time marketer content to the platform. Marketers win by being good vs loud.

— adam bain (@adambain) February 20, 2013

Twitter themselves have said that the API will “reward marketers for being good, not for being loud.” This means that the quality of content will be more important than the quantity of content.

So, what does Twitter’s big announcement mean for advertisers?

A more integrated approach for marketers:

• Marketers now have the ability to manage their Twitter ad campaigns directly through their existing arsenal of social tools, including social listening and CMS platforms.

The ability to manage buys at scale:

• Before this announcement, marketers managing a buy that included different ads and multiple targeting groups had to manually create ads for each combination. Now, marketers can automate this process without having to go through Twitter to load these separate ads.

Hone in on your audience with more granular targeting:

• While Twitter has improved its own targeting capabilities with last year’s release of interest targeting, API partners can utilize both their own metrics and brands’ own consumer profiles to build unique targeting groups.

Drive a higher ROI with increased optimization opportunities:

• The increased ability to segment campaigns and utilize more granular targeting presents an opportunity to test and optimize campaigns at a level that was previously impossible. This will allow marketers to make their spends more efficient, while driving more meaningful engagements.

The importance of creating quality content for ads:

• Now more than ever Twitter is rewarding advertisers who create content users want to engage with. Just like with Facebook, your ads should be treated as a piece of social content, not just an ad unit.

Yesterday’s announcement was just the beginning for Twitter’s API. Over the coming months, expect to see more partners added to the program, more tools created to provide value, and more marketers leveraging Twitter ads.